05 June 2010

Somebody once told me that you should let portraits be about the subjects, let the pictures be what your subject want them to be.. try removing your 'photographer self' from the picture and just be the instrument that connects your subject to your viewer. Let them say to your viewer, "Look. This is me. This is who I am. This is how I want you to see me."
I'm not very sure that I understood this at the time. But there I was, wandering around Darjeeling, looking for the perfect subject, waiting for the perfect light. The subject never came, the sun was still hiding. And then, after a long time spent staring at the clouds, along came this honeymoon couple.
I suppose monks in red robes will never cease to interest photographers (like me), looking for typical travel shots. But once in a while, you bump into people in these tourist spots for whom that particular journey, the moment and the experience will stay with them for a lifetime. And if you are lucky enough, you get to take a piece of them with you.

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He looked at my black-ugly-block of a camera, looked at his precious Kodak point-and-shoot camera, looked at his sweetheart, looked up at me and said smiling, "Sure!"
I clicked, smiled, and let them be.